Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: thisisjimmy on September 02, 2012, 02:19:20 am

Quote from: Kipi on September 01, 2012, 12:55:21 pm

SimCity worked well because it's totally different style of game. You don't usually get situations where you have to act quickly and with accuracy, situations which happens in DF all the time. So comparing SimCity and Dwarf Fortress is not valid, IMHO.

It's rather off-topic from multiplayer, but the problem here is that pausing is tied to designating rather than situations where you need to act quickly.  Sure it's useful to pause when you get sieged or breach a cavern, but why designating?  Better to leave it up to the player.  You can pause whenever you want by pressing space. 

If I'm under attack, I might pause the game and designate a bunch of stuff.  90% of the time when I'm designating, I don't need the game paused.

I think I should have worded my post a bit different. My response was aimed to the fact that you compared Dwarf Fortress and SimCity. In fact, if you can still pause any time you want, there really could be an option for forcing the game to run while designations. In forts with low FPS this could be very good since not much manage to happen. This could have saved several my older forts from boredom.

First off, the default state of the designations screen should be paused. I'm not saying that having the option to unpause while designating is bad; I'm saying not having the option to pause during designation s bad. Funny, that's what'd need to happen if multiplayer was in...

If you use comparison of two or more games just to show that a feature could work in one game then one can presume that the feature is talked in more specific manner instead as broad concept.

Well, it wasn't. At least, not in your post, and in a debate you shouldn't leave your research to your opponent...especially if my point is not invalidating your claim about how well multiplayer stuff works in SimCity, but how it wouldn't apply to DF.

Quote

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on September 01, 2012, 04:07:03 pm

Dwarf Fortress is in its own league. I can think of no other game that has its level of detail, complexity, and breadth. It is not SimCity, or The Sims, or Civilization, or NetHack, or Starcraft, or WoW, or any of the other games available or, to my knowledge, being planned.

A rather dubious claim.  While DF is an amazing game, it's certainly not the most complex, detailed or broad game in existence.  Once you pass the initial learning curve, it's not that hard to learn all the concepts.

I think GreatWyrmGold doesn't mean difficulty when talking about complexity. How many games keep track of the details of how the bodies are made, up to nerves? Or how many game has such an array of stones and metals, each one having specific properties and behavior? How many games can create and simulate huge worlds without any player input? And even make those worlds logical?

Yes, there are games that can achieve the same in one or two specific aspect, but seriously, how many other games can do it all?

So no, I can't too think of any games that is as complex game as DF.

Indeed. I'm not saying I think DF is an insanely good and difficult game, made by gods and only playable by such. I'm saying that it's harder to classify DF than platypi were in the 18th century.

Quote

While no two games are identical, we can still compare features between games.  DF fortress mode is largely in the city-building genre.

Then you could say that guns will work in Forza Motorsport 4 because guns worked in death rally. Both are, after all, car racing games...
Want more examples like above?

You could say that cyberware and drain would fit perfectly well into Dungeons and Dragons, because of how well it works to enhance the game in Shadowrun. Never mind that the genres are different, or that D&D's Vancian magic is well-established (and don't bring up 4th edition, this isn't a good time for that).
You know what I love about Spore? The way you can make EVERYTHING. Let's apply that to Super Mario World! Sure, it misses the point of Mario, requires an additional unneeded layer of complexity, and wouldn't be all that useful, but who cares?
That fulfills the Rule of Three, which in a moment of mercy I will not link to.

Really? 90% of the time when I designate, I'm trying to either give orders to dwarves and don't want them screwing them up until I finish, or I'm making a design and want the game paused for that. Besides, imagine what would happen if a migrant wave arrived in the middle of your designation...

SimCity is still nothing like DF. You'll need a better reason than that to convince me.

Dwarf Fortress is not just a city-building game. It has many functions suggesting otherwise. How many city building games keep track of everything about every citizen, or don't have predefined buildings? DF can't be easily categorised, as you can tell by looking at the bottom of its TV Tropes page.

I have explained my problems with your analogy, and intend to do so at greater length when I get access to a real keyboard.

That shell's not very enormous...

I'll post my Quelge Thefin Hsluh as soon as I remove the skin and get my drawing onto Tinypic or whatever.

I think this is in the wrong subforum.

For now, it won't affect anything beyond your fortress.

Sounds good, and I agree that looms and such shouldn't be powered. Limit it to 1400's, people, Toady said that's the cutoff. Somewhere. It's quoted a lot.

Where?

Now that you can have, say, bauxite stockpiles give to a mason's workshop, it's easy. Other than that, burrows work.